innocents

The sneaky truth about most ghost stories is they’re more concerned with the hauntees than the haunters. The supernatural seems to have more influence over those who are already a bit disturbed to begin with. Which describes the heroine of 1961’s The Innocents, based on Henry James classic The Turn of the Screw, to a tee.

Miss Giddens is a sheltered pastor’s daughter who secures her first position as governess for a pair of precocious children, Flora and Miles, on an isolated country estate. From her very first day strange occurrences begin to peek through the idyllic façade: whispered voices, pale figures and odd behavior by her two young students. A bit of detective work reveals that the previous governess met an unfortunate end…right after her lover, the estate’s valet, did the same. And Miss Giddens begins to suspect that the children were not only under their evil influence when they were alive, but even more so now that they’re dead.

The Innocents is a perfect ghost story. There simply are enough superlatives to throw at it. But the compliments should start with the look created by director Jack Clayton and director of photography Freddie Francis. From the innovative in-camera filters used to create a claustrophobic sense of menace to the startling compositions framing the ghostly apparitions in every corner of the screen, The Innocents is a virtual textbook for combining suspense with artistic ambition.

But if Clayton and Francis spread the icing, screenwriter Truman Capote is responsible for baking the cake itself. Working from a stage adaptation of Henry James’ original novel, The Innocents is a psychological powder keg just waiting the spark to burn all the way down. The character of Miss Gidden’s (played with just the right of amount of manic self-righteousness by Deborah Kerr) is an untrustworthy protagonist, forcing the audience to question not only her judgment but their own as well. Are the ghosts real? Are the children possessed? The film’s first line, “Miss Giddens…do you have an imagination,” is telling either way.

Disturbing in the most delicious way, The Innocents is so much more than a simple gothic spook show. Capote’s overtly sexualized, almost pedophilic relationship between Giddens and young Miles still has the power to shock. And the terror bubbles up from a classic case of Freudian repression and guilt. In fact, those simply looking for another Vincent Price haunted house are sure to be disappointed. But few films have ever achieved such a remarkable balance artistic ambition and pure cinematic dread.

What a treasure to add this one to the Criterion Collection, led by a new 4K digital hi-def restoration on Blu-ray along with several extras, including a lengthy intro by historian Christopher Frayling and audio commentary by the same, a new interview with DP John Bailey about the look of the film, and a well-rounded Making Of. This is one essential that should go right on the shelf between Citizen Kane and the Bible.